Share this story

The last version of Android to be released, 4.1, code-named "Jelly Bean," was only an incremental bump over the major 4.0 release ("Ice Cream Sandwich"). But that little bump made a big difference. Android became more or less fully realized with Ice Cream Sandwich, but Jelly Bean brought a level of polish and maturity that the platform previously lacked.

The biggest improvement for the end-user experience was "Project Butter," the name given to a group of adjustments vastly upgrading Android's responsiveness to touch input. These included adding triple buffered graphics rendering and maximizing the CPU's clock speed briefly whenever the screen is touched (there were also a few other underlying architectural improvements). Taken together, the tweaks made overall performance much more consistent in Jelly Bean. Before, Android's interface was capable of smoothness on sufficiently fast hardware (see our Optimus G review for evidence of that), but Jelly Bean brought smoothness even to older hardware like the Motorola Xoom and first-generation Kindle Fire. Using Android finally felt as good as using iOS or Windows Phone.

Now, only four months after Android 4.1 was released into the wild, the mobile operating system is getting another incremental bump. Android 4.2 carries the same "Jelly Bean" code-name as 4.1. It doesn't bring any drastic changes to the operating system and, given its quick turnaround, no one really expected it to. However, it introduces enough new features to keep Android a healthy contender in the vicious smartphone and tablet markets.

Multiuser support

On tablets, Android 4.2's biggest innovation is multiuser support. These devices are often shared between family members, but a way to keep everyone's chocolate out of everyone else's peanut butter has been generally lacking among tablets since the iPad popularized the form factor 2010. With Android 4.2, different users will be able to configure their own home screens (along with backgrounds, apps, and widgets) and application settings. Finally, there's a way to allow children to play games on the tablet without accidentally erasing all of your work e-mail.

The feature will only be coming to tablets at this point, however—speculation on exactly why has ranged from the innocuous (tablets are more likely to be shared than smartphones) to the litigious (Nokia has its name on a patent that may prevent the feature's implementation on phones). Google informs us the feature will also be coming to 7-inch tablets, so the Nexus 7 should gain multiuser support as soon as its 4.2 update drops.

Currently, we have as many questions as you do about how Android's implementation works: what are its storage requirements? What are its memory usage requirements? Can apps be shared between accounts? Are usernames and passwords set locally, or can you sign in with Google accounts as in Chrome OS? What security measures prevent one user from getting notifications and other data intended for another user? Unfortunately, we don't have any answers at the moment, because the Android 4.2 build that enables multiuser support won't be delivered to Nexus 10 tablets before they begin shipping on November 13. At that point, we'll install the update and publish a follow-up report.

Notifications

Pull-down notification panels have almost always been a part of the Android package. Apple even took a page from Google's playbook by introducing pull-down notifications in its iOS 5 update. Notifications are the gateway to the Android brain, enabling users to keep an eye on what their handset is doing. They have proven to be an unobtrusive way of delivering essential information.

In Android 4.1, Google enhanced notifications panels by making more of them expandable and enabling users to work within them without having to click too many times. Users are no longer just checking to see that someone tweeted them. Instead, they can see exactly what was tweeted, and then reply by launching the Twitter application from the pull-down shade. Notifications aren’t deleted unless they’re swiped away or dealt with, so you don't have to worry about missing something.

Enlarge/ My name is Florence Ion and these are my Quick Settings options. Any questions?

Now in 4.2, Google has followed OEMs like Samsung and LG by including a Quick Settings menu. As the snappy name indicates, Quick Settings allows users instant access to the most frequently changed settings—brightness, connecting to Wi-Fi, checking data usage, displaying battery life, toggling Airplane mode or Bluetooth, and initiating the wireless display. (That last one is part of Android 4.2's Miracast feature, which you can read more about on page three.)

Google previously hid these settings behind another screen, requiring users to tap twice before they can get to it from the Notifications shade. The ability to adjust the screen brightness in a pinch will save a lot of eyes from blinding white screens, though we prefer the way manufacturers like Samsung and LG have kept settings part of the pull-down menu. Google still including the power control widget for users to affix to their Home screens if the double-tap or double-finger swipe is one too many actions.

Both the Notifications and Quick Settings panels are now also accessible from the lock screen of a phone or tablet without an unlock PIN or password. For security reasons, this is disabled on devices with passcodes however. It's a nice touch if you're not locking your screen, though you obviously run a huge risk of data theft when you use a phone or tablet without a password. We recommend that you ignore this feature entirely in favor of securing your data.

New 10-inch tablet user interface

Android 4.2, at least on the Nexus 10, formally retires the Android tablet UI originally introduced in Honeycomb (Android 3.0). This interface survived with few functional tweaks all the way up until Android 4.1, as we saw when we installed the first Jelly Bean update to a Motorola Xoom tablet.

Enlarge/ The old 10-inch tablet user interface in Android 4.1, as seen on the Motorola Xoom. Note the application switcher on the left side of the screen.

Andrew Cunningham

This interface shared many features in common with the phone and 7-inch tablet UI on other Android devices, but it moved things around a bit. The navigation buttons were still stored at the bottom of the screen, but in the lower-left corner rather than in the center. Notifications were accessed by swiping up from the lower-right corner of the screen rather than down from the top. The application switcher appeared on the left side of the screen rather than taking up the whole thing. There were a few other changes, but these were the biggest—the end result was something with the same features as an Android phone, but requiring different actions to access common features.

Enlarge/ The new application switcher now takes up the entire screen, as it does on phones and 7-inch tablets.

Andrew Cunningham

The Nexus 7 made the jump to a more phone-like user interface, and the Nexus 10 follows suit. The new user interface makes some tweaks however, since widescreen tablets will most often be used in landscape mode. But the basics work just as they do on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7: navigation buttons centered in the middle of the screen, a persistent row of applications just above that, and notifications at the top of the screen. There are still some differences between the 7-inch and 10-inch tablet interfaces, all of which are easier to show than to tell.

Enlarge/ The Nexus 10 in landscape mode, populated with widgets and icons. Note that the "dock" is across the bottom of the screen in this mode, reflecting widescreen tablets' tendency to be used primarily in landscape mode.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The Nexus 7's screen in landscape mode, which was introduced in the Android 4.1.2 update. The dock rotates to the right side of the screen here, keeping it thumb-adjacent.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The Nexus 10 in portrait mode. The application dock stays at the bottom of the screen, but there's at least a row of wasted home screen space (note the padding above and below the widgets).

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The Nexus 7 makes much more efficient use of its space in portrait mode, reflecting the tendency of smaller tablets to be used in this mode.

Andrew Cunningham

The notification center also acts slightly different on a 10-inch tablet than on a phone—the standard notification center is accessed by swiping down from the top on the left half of the screen, while the new quick settings menu is accessed by swiping down from the right half. On the Nexus 4 (and other Android phones, when and if they receive an Android 4.2 update), the quick settings menu is accessed via a button in the normal notification center or by swiping down from the top of the screen with two fingers.

The experience of actually using a 10-inch Android tablet doesn't change tremendously with the new UI. The persistent row of applications across the bottom of the screen slightly reduces the amount of vertical space available for widgets. This may be a worthwhile sacrifice to make—otherwise, applications look and run just as they did before.

Some may argue that the new UI isn't the best use of a 10-inch tablet's real estate, but this strikes us as a concession to usability and consistency on Android's part. The old 10-inch UI took familiar elements from the phone UI and put them in unfamiliar places. With the new UI, anyone who picks up and uses a Nexus 7 or a Nexus 4 will automatically be able to pick up and play with a Nexus 10 without needing a re-learn anything. This is a small but important step in selling Android users on the larger tablet. After all, an iPad looks and operates mostly like a blown-up version of the iPhone and iPod touch. In the long run, this certainly helped keep Apple consumers comfortable as they move between devices.

But the biggest question: will an Android 4.2 update to existing 10-inch tablets change the user interface to the new phone-style or allow partners to continue using the old UI to prevent user frustration? Having something you use every day suddenly change can be jarring. But even if it's no longer officially supported by Google, it's a fair bet third-party launchers will be able to re-enable it if you really prefer.

Share this story

158 Reader Comments

Honestly dont get it. Any small improvement on Android/ios side is praised by everyone. But, from Windows, i see just bashing it for any little change. I think people just think Windows as something old and just want something new and something they don't know yet. They just want to play

Honestly dont get it. Any small improvement on Android/ios side is praised by everyone. But, from Windows, i see just bashing it for any little change. I think people just think Windows as something old and just want something new and something they don't know yet. They just want to play

One of my main concerns w/ Windows as a tablet OS is the lack of feature updates. iOS comes out once a year, Android even more than that, but Windows? 3 years in between major versions, and if history is anything to go by only security/compatibility fixes in between. I've gotten used to a more fast-paced update cycle.

I'm still reserving judgement though until there's an x86 tablet out there running full Win8, with a screen and battery life comparable to iPad4. I may be waiting awhile, but such as beast would be awesome.

I'm going to scream if I can't view my lock screen in landscape mode soon. I have the Galaxy Nexus (LTE) and it's infuriating to have it in the (shitty, non-pogo-pinned*) car dock and have to unlock sideways.

*I'd like to throttle whoever decided to manufacture my phone with pogo pins and then design practically NOTHING that works with them.

While it's a shame that so many Android phones out there will probably never get this upgrade because of the carriers failing to make it available in a timely manner, the common consumer can almost always get it if they want it badly enough. See if there is an AOKP or Cyanogenmod build available for your phone. Follow the step-by-step instructions that look long but only take about 10 minutes (without experience and much tech-savvyness) to perform, and enjoy. I always see someone trying to make an argument that flashing a custom ROM is "too hard", or "too time consuming", or "too confusing", but it's not. If you can go to IKEA and pick up a new desk chair and build it yourself by following the instructions, then there's no excuse for you not being able to flash a custom ROM, *IF* you care enough about getting the upgrades that the carriers are too slow to push out to you. If you don't care, then be content with what you have. Sure, the Android upgrade path is a mess, but there are ways around it, so there's no reason to complain since the workaround is literally so easy a child could do it. Unless you're one of the *VERY* few phone owners for which there is no build of one of these ROMs available.

And once you flash Cyanogenmod for the first time, there is (now) an updater built in which does everything for you so that you never need to do any work yourself again besides hit "Check for updates".

And once you flash Cyanogenmod for the first time, there is (now) an updater built in which does everything for you so that you never need to do any work yourself again besides hit "Check for updates".

Cyanogenmod is not supported for every phone. For some phones that it does support, it only supports Gingerbread (CM7).

If it was easy to get ICS or better on my DINC2, I would have done it by now. Currently the only 4.x ROMs available are reported as experimental with bugs that make them unsuitable for everyday use (no camera? No thanks.)

And once you flash Cyanogenmod for the first time, there is (now) an updater built in which does everything for you so that you never need to do any work yourself again besides hit "Check for updates".

Cyanogenmod is not supported for every phone. For some phones that it does support, it only supports Gingerbread (CM7).

If it was easy to get ICS or better on my DINC2, I would have done it by now. Currently the only 4.x ROMs available are reported as experimental with bugs that make them unsuitable for everyday use (no camera? No thanks.)

Fair enough, that's a legitimate point, and it's unfortunate that that's the case for you. It sounds like you have an older phone that probably wouldn't be very suitable for running ICS or Jelly Bean anyways... Even if it's possible, it probably wouldn't run well enough to be a good daily driver.

We do have to consider that phones made before a certain (roughly) date, due to technical specifications , shouldn't be used as part of the reason to finger Android's upgrade path, just as we wouldn't consider an argument that all computers made 20 years ago should be able to run Windows 8. There's a point where the unfortunate truth is that it's just not feasible, and this shouldn't be a reason to dock a point from anyone. We have to be reasonable.

Now, if you just bought your phone yesterday and there's no plan for a Cyanogenmod build, for example, I would question that. But then another question comes in, "Are drivers available", or "Is there anything hardware-specific holding back the ability to make a release"? These are also points that should not be used as counter-arguments, since they're reasonable exceptions. So don't try to argue that a really low-end phone might not run the latest Cyangenmod well if at all - The point was to make the phone cheaper by cheaping out on power. That's kind of the point. Or the phone is just too old.

That said, almost every major flagship phone made within the past year, and even in some cases two years, most likely has a Cyanogenmod build for the latest version of Jelly Bean for which source code is available. I'm rocking it on my Galaxy S2 i9100, and despite some incredibly minor bugs, I use it as a daily driver with absolutely no complaints.

UDPATE: I checked, and your phone was released early last year with Gingerbread. Looks like it's capable of running ICS, albeit a buggier build, but that's to be expected given how old your hardware is. No one foresaw ICS or JB at all at that point, so you're working with much older (in terms of "development time") hardware, so it's to be expected. Hope someone makes it run well so you can enjoy it.

I'm going to scream if I can't view my lock screen in landscape mode soon. I have the Galaxy Nexus (LTE) and it's infuriating to have it in the (shitty, non-pogo-pinned*) car dock and have to unlock sideways.

*I'd like to throttle whoever decided to manufacture my phone with pogo pins and then design practically NOTHING that works with them.

/rage

I have both a Nexus 7 and a Galaxy Nexus, both with 4.1.2, the version that introduced rotation of the lock screen and home screen. The lock and home screens both rotate on the tablet, but not the phone. I'd not expect that to be different with 4.2. I thought it an odd decision (not rotating it on the phone), but perhaps it makes sense - to someone, somewhere.

My DINC 2 is less than two years old. ICS was promised July or August of this year. It's a Droid branded phone, not some bargain-bin knock-off. It's got a 1GHz Snapdragon & 768MB of RAM. If the Raspberry Pi can run 4.0, so can my phone, at least hardware-wise. Unfortunately, HTC has reneged on their promise and shows no sign of correcting their mistake.

I strongly recommend against purchasing an Android phone based on the expectation of a future software update. Even with established brands and competent hardware, you may be let down by the manufacturer/carrier. The "community" is not a magic fix. I'm just glad someone managed to crack the (signed) bootloader so I could get CM7 at all.

I was due for an upgrade and was holding out to hear what the new Nexus would be at the end of Octoboer. Since the Optimus Nexus won't be coming to Sprint, I just took the plunge and got a Galaxy Nexus. The phone is freakin' sweet, although battery life could be better. I went home and immediately had the 4.1.4 update waiting for me (it had 4.0 installed at the time). I'm looking forward to getting 4.2 in the coming weeks. Built in Swype-like support? Yes Please!

I would strongly suggest to anyone looking at Android phones to stick with the Nexus line if updates are important to you.

Well, stick with a GSM Nexus perhaps. Updates to the CDMA Nexus phones are gated by Verizon/Sprint. It took them forever to get the 4.1 Jellybean update. Let's see how long it takes for the 4.2 update.

With regard to notifications: Do app updates or installations still get an individual notification each while the user's emails are lumped together into a blunt list that when tapped just opens the inbox in Gmail? These are the small things that really get on my nerves with Android compared to iOS. There are some priorities that seem plain wrong, the user's data as the actual "payload" of the thing should be front and center.

But I'm certainly happy to get 4.2 on my Nexus 7. Never getting any updates must be hell on earth.

yea, when they talked about being able to expand notifications in 4.1, i thought gmail was an obvious choice, but all it does is show your more if you don't have many other notifications. hopefully they've worked on this in 4.2.

Right now there are 13 notifications in the drawer on my Nexus 7. Only three of them are remotely connected to me and my data: The email notification (which I have to expand to see the actual senders and subjects and even then I still can't tap one to jump straight to the email) as well as a weather card from Google Now (with just the current weather and no forecast) and two event reminders from yesterday (both lumped together in one notification, not tappable individually). Weather and the events are even pushed down off the bottom of the drawer so I have to scroll down to see them. The other nine notifications are more or less system stuff: Updates, app installs, downloads, two services constantly announcing that they're running. All of these are deemed to be more important than my stuff: They are at the top level, there's no need to expand them first and when tapped every single one jumps straight to whatever it announces.

I'm really curious if 4.2 will get its head screwed on the right way here.

You didn't say what version you have on your tablet - 4.1.2? My Nexus 7, with 4.1.2, certainly DOES allow tapping from the notifications directly into e-mail. I also see the sender (wait ...maybe it's the subject?) in the notifications. And at any time, you can clear all of the notifications; drag down the drawer and click the little staircase symbol at the top. That clears all non-persistent notifications (I have a battery minder app that auto-refreshes the notification, so it can't be cleared). Any improvements to notifications in 4.2 may go well beyond this, but at least some of what you seem to want is already there! No idea why you aren't seeing these features.

Can't say I'm a fan of the screen height loss from the status on top bar, in addition to software buttons.In phones, the button bar isn't large enough to encompass the status bar functions. The same can't be said on a tablet. Either this leads other manufacturers away from software buttons, or we lose yet more vertical space on an already wide tablets in landscape.There's something to be said of the advantage of software buttons, but that empty button bar in a 10" device is not it: there are far better uses for all that empty space.

I went to post much the same thing. I have an ICS rom on my Fire. I tried a Jelly Bean rom, but I couldn't get tablet mode to jive. Because of that one UI decision I decided to not bother with JB anymore. Then work gave me an iPad and I havent touched the Fire in two months.

With regard to notifications: Do app updates or installations still get an individual notification each while the user's emails are lumped together into a blunt list that when tapped just opens the inbox in Gmail? These are the small things that really get on my nerves with Android compared to iOS. There are some priorities that seem plain wrong, the user's data as the actual "payload" of the thing should be front and center.

But I'm certainly happy to get 4.2 on my Nexus 7. Never getting any updates must be hell on earth.

yea, when they talked about being able to expand notifications in 4.1, i thought gmail was an obvious choice, but all it does is show your more if you don't have many other notifications. hopefully they've worked on this in 4.2.

Right now there are 13 notifications in the drawer on my Nexus 7. Only three of them are remotely connected to me and my data: The email notification (which I have to expand to see the actual senders and subjects and even then I still can't tap one to jump straight to the email) as well as a weather card from Google Now (with just the current weather and no forecast) and two event reminders from yesterday (both lumped together in one notification, not tappable individually). Weather and the events are even pushed down off the bottom of the drawer so I have to scroll down to see them. The other nine notifications are more or less system stuff: Updates, app installs, downloads, two services constantly announcing that they're running. All of these are deemed to be more important than my stuff: They are at the top level, there's no need to expand them first and when tapped every single one jumps straight to whatever it announces.

I'm really curious if 4.2 will get its head screwed on the right way here.

You didn't say what version you have on your tablet - 4.1.2? My Nexus 7, with 4.1.2, certainly DOES allow tapping from the notifications directly into e-mail. I also see the sender (wait ...maybe it's the subject?) in the notifications. And at any time, you can clear all of the notifications; drag down the drawer and click the little staircase symbol at the top. That clears all non-persistent notifications (I have a battery minder app that auto-refreshes the notification, so it can't be cleared). Any improvements to notifications in 4.2 may go well beyond this, but at least some of what you seem to want is already there! No idea why you aren't seeing these features.

He wants to be able to tap on an individual email to go directly to it, which doesn't work, and the detailed gmail notification gets shrunk down to just telling you that you have new messages if you have more than 3-4 notifications. Supposedly in 4.1, you should be able to expand a notification (two finger swipe, if i remember right) to get more details, but i can't say I've seen it actually work in anything.

Acer killed off support for the Iconia A500 early this year, and only thanks to hard working devs working on the cm10 project, has delivered Android 4.1 to the A500.

Even third party ROMs are not a miracle cure. I have the LG Optimus 2X, and because LG didn't release kernel sources or drivers for the platform, it was not possible for the CM team to get a fully functional ICS or JB build released. Various unofficial builds were made available, but they were all very unstable and lacked features like hardware acceleration making them useless for daily use.

Only in the last week were the missing pieces made available, and fully working, official CM10 nightlies made available.

The 4.0 sources work fine with 4.1 and probably 4.2, but eventually we're going to run into the same problem again and hit a dead end. So even third party ROM developers depend on support from the manufacturer.

We do have to consider that phones made before a certain (roughly) date, due to technical specifications , shouldn't be used as part of the reason to finger Android's upgrade path

Why not? While these phones might not be able to run JB, they might have been able to run ICS. And some of them haven't even been updated to Gingerbread.

there's two problems here: ICS and above requires new hardware drivers, gingerbread and below do not. This is one of the reasons for the lack of ICS upgrades. Secondly, ICS and JB aren't significantly different, resource wise, but there was a huge jump in resources required between GB and ICS, so many phones which got everything to that point, got left behind due to performance concerns (looking at you, nexus one)

upgrading to ICS resembles a Windows upgrade more than most android upgrades, older hardware just can't keep up, and many vendors don't feel the need to update their drivers for new OS.

While it's a shame that so many Android phones out there will probably never get this upgrade because of the carriers failing to make it available in a timely manner, the common consumer can almost always get it if they want it badly enough. See if there is an AOKP or Cyanogenmod build available for your phone. Follow the step-by-step instructions that look long but only take about 10 minutes (without experience and much tech-savvyness) to perform, and enjoy. I always see someone trying to make an argument that flashing a custom ROM is "too hard", or "too time consuming", or "too confusing", but it's not. If you can go to IKEA and pick up a new desk chair and build it yourself by following the instructions, then there's no excuse for you not being able to flash a custom ROM, *IF* you care enough about getting the upgrades that the carriers are too slow to push out to you. If you don't care, then be content with what you have. Sure, the Android upgrade path is a mess, but there are ways around it, so there's no reason to complain since the workaround is literally so easy a child could do it. Unless you're one of the *VERY* few phone owners for which there is no build of one of these ROMs available.

And once you flash Cyanogenmod for the first time, there is (now) an updater built in which does everything for you so that you never need to do any work yourself again besides hit "Check for updates".

I'd be very interested to know what percentage (as a total of units in use, across all models) of phones you think are actually upgradeable through Cyanogen or other stable, feature-complete ROMs. You seem willing to assume it's most of them, to the point that you're confident throwing out the caps and stars ("*VERY*"), but I'm wondernig what you're basing that on. Have you even clicked around on the CM site to see what phones are supported up to what version? There are many devices still stuck at CM7, which probably will remain there.

And it's not a power thing. Not in all cases, at least. Phones are missing ICS (and beyond) updates that are similar in capability (or exceed the capability) of phones that have seen official updates and run it without issue. They (presumably) just lack some critical pieces from the OEM to get it working. So those handsets don't get updated, regardless of how much the user might want it, and how far they might be willing to go.

I mean, I guess I could, without technical documentation of the hardware, code my own drivers for my phone. I don't see it ending well, though.

People, like yourself, in the community ignoring the issue and trying to hand-wave it away doesn't help anything. Failing to acknowledge just how bad it is means it doesn't get changed, and it makes me hesitant to invest in another Android device that may have the same damn problem.

I really look forwards to trying this update now that they've added multiuser support.

However I really wish they would have tweaked the scrolling to get it even closer to IOS devices in terms of speed and fluidity.

I fail to see how the Nexus 7 is as smooth, and fast as an iPad2 when it comes to scrolling. I bought the Nexus 7 a few days ago, and I was so frustrated with it at first that I started googling for solution on how to fix it. I didn't find anything that would make it scroll as smoothly in Chrome as the ipad does within Safari.

It doesn't really detract from my main use (GPS + Maps), but it does make me pause a bit on whether to get another android device. If I didn't have an iPad I probably would have never noticed.

Long page warning. But a surprising amount of devices, even fairly old ones, have 3rd party ROM support of some level or another. CyanogenMod isn't even the half of it.

Whether it's most or lots or half or almost none or whatever, I don't know.

The thing is, I don't regard slow updates as a problem, particularly. If you want to always have the latest updates, then make sure you buy a phone either from Google or one easily upgradable yourself. If it's a factor that matters to you, then it should be part of your research before a purchase. A great deal of people neither know what software they're running, nor do they care. They have a phone and it does the things they want. The carriers are interested in stability and ease of support. Only a minority of nerds (a group in which I include myself) care about having the very latest shiny all the time.

Long page warning. But a surprising amount of devices, even fairly old ones, have 3rd party ROM support of some level or another. CyanogenMod isn't even the half of it.

Of some level or another. How many have 4.x support that's feature-complete? That's what I'm getting at. My phone has third-party ROM support...all the way up to Gingerbread.

Quote:

Whether it's most or lots or half or almost none or whatever, I don't know.

The thing is, I don't regard slow updates as a problem, particularly. If you want to always have the latest updates, then make sure you buy a phone either from Google or one easily upgradable yourself. If it's a factor that matters to you, then it should be part of your research before a purchase. A great deal of people neither know what software they're running, nor do they care. They have a phone and it does the things they want. The carriers are interested in stability and ease of support. Only a minority of nerds (a group in which I include myself) care about having the very latest shiny all the time.

Funny part is, I did make sure I'd be able to upgrade my phone to the (at the time) current OS. It came with Froyo, and had a Gingerbread update in the works, but I looked around online, made sure it was easily rootable, and that I could put Gingerbread on it myself if I wanted.

It's been a while since I attempted to upgrade a HTC Tattoo to CyanogenMod and I seemed to always read comments about how hardware acceleration, WiFi, GPS, the camera, Bluetooth or a combination of them were common things that didn't properly work when you jumped to CM - due to a lack of access to the drivers of the underlying hardware.

In short, it wasn't a perfect solution because for what you gained, you invariably lost something.

Of some level or another. How many have 4.x support that's feature-complete? That's what I'm getting at. My phone has third-party ROM support...all the way up to Gingerbread.

I have no idea. I'm sure a few hours looking through xda-devs will find you an answer. Who's volunteering for that job?

Quote:

Didn't help me when ICS rolled around.

Matter of interest, what breed of phone do you have? I've seen ICS ROMs for fairly old, low-power handsets like the HTC Legend. It's possible that anything much older doesn't have the grunt to power ICS, but don't quote me on that.

Of some level or another. How many have 4.x support that's feature-complete? That's what I'm getting at. My phone has third-party ROM support...all the way up to Gingerbread.

I have no idea. I'm sure a few hours looking through xda-devs will find you an answer. Who's volunteering for that job?

*touches nose*

Not it!

Quote:

Quote:

Didn't help me when ICS rolled around.

Matter of interest, what breed of phone do you have? I've seen ICS ROMs for fairly old, low-power handsets like the HTC Legend. It's possible that anything much older doesn't have the grunt to power ICS, but don't quote me on that.

[/quote]

Droid Incredible 2. It can run ICS just fine, in fact I think there was a development ROM going around that got leaked for the Incredible S (that or the S got an official update, not sure), but never any official updates for the 2, nor any mainstream custom ROMs. Most custom ROMs I've seen out there for it have either been feature-incomplete, or sound fairly buggy (too buggy for me to want to deal with...I need my phone to work).

I'm two months from an early upgrade, and with the failing charge port an lack of updates I'll probably trash this thing. I certainly won't buy again from HTC, and whether I'll stay with Android is iffy at this point.

After buying a Transformer Prime around this time last year, I've come to love and hate Android.

I like it over iOS, however ASUS just finally upgraded by tablet to Jelly Bean and I haven't seen any word about it getting 4.2 ever. Because I have the TF201 and not the newer TF700 (or whatever it is), I'm not going to see much support in the XDA community either.

Basically, compared to Apple - 3rd party Android devices get the shaft for upgrades. And it does suck compared to living in iOS land where you get something as long as your device is within a couple years old.

I am very curious how Microsoft will handle WP8 upgrades as time goes on. Will WP8 phones get screwed by carriers the way Android devices do?

I guess the moral here, is buy a Nexus or don't buy an Android device is you want to actually have timely, if any, software updates.

The prime is the second gen device. Considering you got the update around 4 months after the source was released is quite good. Tegra3 is also on the Nexus7 so getting 4.2 onto it won't be hard either.

edit: Heck the original Xoom is running 4.1 now. That's the first tablet to run Honeycomb, 3.0. In contrast, the carrier version got updates to ICS many months later than the stock version (only a few weeks).

I think better modularity would go a very long way to lessen the need (that clearly exists now) for Nexus devices. Android needs to be split into a base OS, hardware drivers, and user interface modules that can be independently updated, customized and replaced by the user and/or the device manufacturer.

If OEMs are behind, that means they aren't doing their jobs keeping up with the underlying Linux changes that update independently of Android and open sourcing the drivers puts the onus on the Linux community to make sure kernel updates work with existing drivers.

While the OEMs and Carriers are slow to update android phones people have to consider that those of make custom roms aren't affected by*making sure there are as few bugs or problems as possible.*getting the phone tested and verified

Of course they guy who tells you he isn't responsible if the rom he made screws up your phone will be faster to release than the company who doesn't say that at all.

Still custom ui layers do slow the process down. However I'm not in favor of removing them, I think it is cool that Samsung, HTC, LG,etc have there own variations on android. I just they were better and worth delaying the process, currently they are not.

However I really wish they would have tweaked the scrolling to get it even closer to IOS devices in terms of speed and fluidity.

I fail to see how the Nexus 7 is as smooth, and fast as an iPad2 when it comes to scrolling. I bought the Nexus 7 a few days ago, and I was so frustrated with it at first that I started googling for solution on how to fix it. I didn't find anything that would make it scroll as smoothly in Chrome as the ipad does within Safari.

It doesn't really detract from my main use (GPS + Maps), but it does make me pause a bit on whether to get another android device. If I didn't have an iPad I probably would have never noticed.

It's funny how such a little thing can be so distracting.

Overall I think the N7 is fairly close to the iPad in terms of UI fluidity; certainly close enough that most people wouldn't notice the difference unless they use both devices regularly. But I agree with you on Chrome - it's definitely stuttery, especially in comparison to Mobile Safari. It's still a fairly new app so I imagine it will improve, but for now the browser is one area where I think iOS still has a significant lead. (The tap-to-zoom functionality in Chrome and the old Android browser also drives me nuts; in Safari, 9 times out of 10 the viewport is perfectly resized to the width of the div that was tapped. In Chrome, 9 times out of 10 it resizes *almost* perfectly, meaning I always have to manually adjust it before all of the text is readable.)

Re 4.2, that new 10" interface - bleh. Android already gets enough heat for "blown up phone apps", and now the base UI on larger tablets looks like...a blown-up phone UI. I understand wanting a more consistent experience across devices, but the differences between the phone/tablet UIs weren't difficult to figure out in ICS & JB, and the tablet UI worked really well. With all of the large-screen Android phones coming out these days, I'd rather see the UI tilt more towards the tablet side rather than the reverse.

My DINC 2 is less than two years old. ICS was promised July or August of this year. It's a Droid branded phone, not some bargain-bin knock-off. It's got a 1GHz Snapdragon & 768MB of RAM. If the Raspberry Pi can run 4.0, so can my phone, at least hardware-wise. Unfortunately, HTC has reneged on their promise and shows no sign of correcting their mistake.

I strongly recommend against purchasing an Android phone based on the expectation of a future software update. Even with established brands and competent hardware, you may be let down by the manufacturer/carrier. The "community" is not a magic fix. I'm just glad someone managed to crack the (signed) bootloader so I could get CM7 at all.

The community may not be a magic fix for your phone, but it has been for literally hundreds of others. It's not perfect, but I think *most* people with *fairly* recent phones are able to get up to speed on ICS and/or JB quite easily. Obviously not everyone though.

I think better modularity would go a very long way to lessen the need (that clearly exists now) for Nexus devices. Android needs to be split into a base OS, hardware drivers, and user interface modules that can be independently updated, customized and replaced by the user and/or the device manufacturer.

If OEMs are behind, that means they aren't doing their jobs keeping up with the underlying Linux changes that update independently of Android and open sourcing the drivers puts the onus on the Linux community to make sure kernel updates work with existing drivers.

You are basing this on the assumption that the drivers were in the kernel to begin with - they are not. And now seeing your edit, why would those OEMs bother releasing new drivers every time Google pairs a new kernel to the android release? They've already moved on to newer hardware. It might get better but I doubt it.Plus, the kernel devs don't give a crap about closed drivers - they will not hold back kernel development for the sake of drivers. Which means Android suffers from the same plague that Linux does on the desktop, albeit not as much.Sometimes too the drivers are open source but then they won't compile to the new kernel.

While it's a shame that so many Android phones out there will probably never get this upgrade because of the carriers failing to make it available in a timely manner, the common consumer can almost always get it if they want it badly enough. See if there is an AOKP or Cyanogenmod build available for your phone. Follow the step-by-step instructions that look long but only take about 10 minutes (without experience and much tech-savvyness) to perform, and enjoy. I always see someone trying to make an argument that flashing a custom ROM is "too hard", or "too time consuming", or "too confusing", but it's not. If you can go to IKEA and pick up a new desk chair and build it yourself by following the instructions, then there's no excuse for you not being able to flash a custom ROM, *IF* you care enough about getting the upgrades that the carriers are too slow to push out to you. If you don't care, then be content with what you have. Sure, the Android upgrade path is a mess, but there are ways around it, so there's no reason to complain since the workaround is literally so easy a child could do it. Unless you're one of the *VERY* few phone owners for which there is no build of one of these ROMs available.

And once you flash Cyanogenmod for the first time, there is (now) an updater built in which does everything for you so that you never need to do any work yourself again besides hit "Check for updates".

I'd be very interested to know what percentage (as a total of units in use, across all models) of phones you think are actually upgradeable through Cyanogen or other stable, feature-complete ROMs. You seem willing to assume it's most of them, to the point that you're confident throwing out the caps and stars ("*VERY*"), but I'm wondernig what you're basing that on. Have you even clicked around on the CM site to see what phones are supported up to what version? There are many devices still stuck at CM7, which probably will remain there.

And it's not a power thing. Not in all cases, at least. Phones are missing ICS (and beyond) updates that are similar in capability (or exceed the capability) of phones that have seen official updates and run it without issue. They (presumably) just lack some critical pieces from the OEM to get it working. So those handsets don't get updated, regardless of how much the user might want it, and how far they might be willing to go.

I mean, I guess I could, without technical documentation of the hardware, code my own drivers for my phone. I don't see it ending well, though.

People, like yourself, in the community ignoring the issue and trying to hand-wave it away doesn't help anything. Failing to acknowledge just how bad it is means it doesn't get changed, and it makes me hesitant to invest in another Android device that may have the same damn problem.

I'm not ignoring the problem though as you suggest. Hence my use of words like "most" and not "all". It IS a problem that manufacturers aren't hopping on the upgrade bandwagon. Just not as blown out of proportion as people seem to think, unless you don't have the patience to read a bit of text and download a zip to upgrade your phone via a custom ROM.

However I really wish they would have tweaked the scrolling to get it even closer to IOS devices in terms of speed and fluidity.

I fail to see how the Nexus 7 is as smooth, and fast as an iPad2 when it comes to scrolling. I bought the Nexus 7 a few days ago, and I was so frustrated with it at first that I started googling for solution on how to fix it. I didn't find anything that would make it scroll as smoothly in Chrome as the ipad does within Safari.

It doesn't really detract from my main use (GPS + Maps), but it does make me pause a bit on whether to get another android device. If I didn't have an iPad I probably would have never noticed.

It's funny how such a little thing can be so distracting.

Overall I think the N7 is fairly close to the iPad in terms of UI fluidity; certainly close enough that most people wouldn't notice the difference unless they use both devices regularly. But I agree with you on Chrome - it's definitely stuttery, especially in comparison to Mobile Safari. It's still a fairly new app so I imagine it will improve, but for now the browser is one area where I think iOS still has a significant lead. (The tap-to-zoom functionality in Chrome and the old Android browser also drives me nuts; in Safari, 9 times out of 10 the viewport is perfectly resized to the width of the div that was tapped. In Chrome, 9 times out of 10 it resizes *almost* perfectly, meaning I always have to manually adjust it before all of the text is readable.)

Re 4.2, that new 10" interface - bleh. Android already gets enough heat for "blown up phone apps", and now the base UI on larger tablets looks like...a blown-up phone UI. I understand wanting a more consistent experience across devices, but the differences between the phone/tablet UIs weren't difficult to figure out in ICS & JB, and the tablet UI worked really well. With all of the large-screen Android phones coming out these days, I'd rather see the UI tilt more towards the tablet side rather than the reverse.

Chrome oddly enough was never as smooth as the the stock ICS browser. I wish it was still around in JB cause it scrolled so much easier.

You can try FireFox Beta. Surprisingly it is very fast and supports adblock plus It scrolls like it should. The tab support you may like better.

Droid Incredible 2. It can run ICS just fine, in fact I think there was a development ROM going around that got leaked for the Incredible S (that or the S got an official update, not sure), but never any official updates for the 2, nor any mainstream custom ROMs. Most custom ROMs I've seen out there for it have either been feature-incomplete, or sound fairly buggy (too buggy for me to want to deal with...I need my phone to work).

I'm two months from an early upgrade, and with the failing charge port an lack of updates I'll probably trash this thing. I certainly won't buy again from HTC, and whether I'll stay with Android is iffy at this point.

Doesn't look like much has been done on that handset. From the forum title I assume it was a carrier-specific model. Problem with those is they don't get out into the hands of bored-but-skilled teenagers in Romania/India/etc who then hack together ROMs for them.

I wouldn't buy HTC again. Neither would I buy Samsung, LG, Motorola, Apple or anyone but Sony. Unlockable bootloaders, slick hardware design (imo) and best-in-field cameras are what I'm looking for in a phone. But I also went off-contract last year, so I bought outright and only pay my carrier for a voice/data pipe. Actually worked out a load cheaper, for me, other people's mileage is always variable.

My DINC 2 is less than two years old. ICS was promised July or August of this year. It's a Droid branded phone, not some bargain-bin knock-off. It's got a 1GHz Snapdragon & 768MB of RAM. If the Raspberry Pi can run 4.0, so can my phone, at least hardware-wise. Unfortunately, HTC has reneged on their promise and shows no sign of correcting their mistake.

I strongly recommend against purchasing an Android phone based on the expectation of a future software update. Even with established brands and competent hardware, you may be let down by the manufacturer/carrier. The "community" is not a magic fix. I'm just glad someone managed to crack the (signed) bootloader so I could get CM7 at all.

The community may not be a magic fix for your phone, but it has been for literally hundreds of others. It's not perfect, but I think *most* people with *fairly* recent phones are able to get up to speed on ICS and/or JB quite easily. Obviously not everyone though.

That's a ringing endorsement of the Android platform: "most people don't get fucked."

Quote:

I'm not ignoring the problem though as you suggest. Hence my use of words like "most" and not "all". It IS a problem that manufacturers aren't hopping on the upgrade bandwagon. Just not as blown out of proportion as people seem to think, unless you don't have the patience to read a bit of text and download a zip to upgrade your phone via a custom ROM.

Or unless you lose your spin on Android Phone Roulette. You forgot that part. Again.

The sentence "unless you aren't able to read a bit of text" should always always always have "or unless you just fucked up and wound up with the wrong phone" appended as well.

Droid Incredible 2. It can run ICS just fine, in fact I think there was a development ROM going around that got leaked for the Incredible S (that or the S got an official update, not sure), but never any official updates for the 2, nor any mainstream custom ROMs. Most custom ROMs I've seen out there for it have either been feature-incomplete, or sound fairly buggy (too buggy for me to want to deal with...I need my phone to work).

I'm two months from an early upgrade, and with the failing charge port an lack of updates I'll probably trash this thing. I certainly won't buy again from HTC, and whether I'll stay with Android is iffy at this point.

Doesn't look like much has been done on that handset. From the forum title I assume it was a carrier-specific model. Problem with those is they don't get out into the hands of bored-but-skilled teenagers in Romania/India/etc who then hack together ROMs for them.

I wouldn't buy HTC again. Neither would I buy Samsung, LG, Motorola, Apple or anyone but Sony. Unlockable bootloaders, slick hardware design (imo) and best-in-field cameras are what I'm looking for in a phone. But I also went off-contract last year, so I bought outright and only pay my carrier for a voice/data pipe. Actually worked out a load cheaper, for me, other people's mileage is always variable.

I've been there, I know where to get ROMs. I'm well aware that there are a plethora of Gingerbread ROMs available for my phone, and some alpha/beta ICS builds that I have no plans to install. When I talk about "most custom ROMs I've seen" where did you think I was talking about? On Pinterest?

And yeah, avoid HTC and any carrier exclusive phones, I know that now. But it was an expensive and annoying mistake, and one that definitely didn't give me a good impression of the Android ecosystem.